Let's Be Healthy Latinas!

91. Modeling Healthy Habits For Your Kid When You Don't Even Know What Those Look Like

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 91

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We explore the challenges of wanting to model healthy habits for our children when we haven't learned these behaviors ourselves, offering practical ways to start this journey without perfectionism.

• The podcast name has changed to "Let's Be Healthy Latinas" to reflect our community focus and make it easier for Latinas seeking health resources to find us
• Children learn by watching what we do, not just what we say – they are natural detectives observing our habits
• Perfectionism around health creates paralysis – start with small, imperfect steps rather than waiting to have everything figured out
• Working out at home with kids around, though imperfect, teaches them that movement is normal and important
• Kids have different nutritional needs than adults – avoid imposing restrictive adult diets on growing children
• Learning alongside your children is more powerful than pretending to have all the answers
• Three simple starting points: drink more water, incorporate fresh foods, and enjoy movement together
• The starting point for teaching your kids healthy habits is simply you starting your own health journey

If you want help figuring out how to start modeling healthy habits for your family, book a free consultation call with the link in the show notes or DM me on Instagram.

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

Hello friends, welcome back to the podcast. If you have not noticed, we have a new name. We are called let's Be Healthy Latinas. And it's we, because it's all of us right? I am so excited for the episode for today because I think it's such a beautiful flow or transition from wealthy generation W-E-L-L-T-H-Y wealthy to let's be healthy Latinas.

Speaker 1:

On today's episode, we are going to talk about or I'm going to talk about wanting to model healthy habits for your children, but not knowing how to do that, not knowing what it looks like, not knowing where to start, not knowing if it's going to be effective or not. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. But before we get into that, I just wanted to share a little bit about why I decided to change the name of the podcast, about why I decided to change the name of the podcast. So there's there's a two part reason. The first reason is because I wanted the name to be more of a reflection of how I feel about my work and it's along the same lines as wealthy generation in terms of it being all encompassing. I want it to be us and them. I want it to be us and our children, and our parents and our grandparents. So how can we have this flow of changing generational health patterns in our communities, in our families? So when we are healthy Latinas together, when we are all like hey, let's go, let's be healthy Latinas, then that gets translated into not just us, our community, our peers, but also our children and our relatives, our loved ones. It just is through osmosis most of the time that other people start to notice and become interested in their health as well. Okay, at least at the very least seeds get planted, and that is always good, because usually seeds always grow right at their own time. So that was part of it. And two, I really, really, really want this podcast to grow.

Speaker 1:

I want people to find it who are looking for this kind of information, and I thought that a name that was more relevant to what I was talking about and wasn't confusing or could be confused for something else like generational wealthy, generation as monetary wealth. That's part of the reason why I changed it as well, because I remember when I first started listening to podcasts quite some time ago, the podcast that I found were of white people and I was just curious. I wanted to listen to stories that were relevant to me and my lived experiences, although I really did find great information from black podcast hosts, african-americans from white people, like it was fine. But I really wanted to feel seen in my personal lived experiences. So I remember going to the search bar on like Apple podcast and typing in the word Latina to see what came up. And I remember at that time there were and I remember at that time there were not so many because this was a few years, like maybe 10 years ago or something like that and the one podcast that came up was Latina to Latina and first gen other immigrants, daughters of immigrants stories were like and not only like the struggles but also how they overcame. That's really what I was looking for how they overcame their struggles and how they persevered and how they built their own path and other things that they had to deal with. So that's part of the reason. I know that there are a tons of Latinas out there who also are looking to be healthy and finding and trying to find a resource where they feel seen, where their culture is acknowledged, where the first gen experience is acknowledged and seen.

Speaker 1:

So that is part of the reason why and oftentimes my clients have told me like I was looking for somebody like you. Like you were the person I found to support me with my health issues, with losing weight, with my hormones. I want to be healthy, but I don't want to give up my cultural foods. I want to have pupusas and I want to have sopes and I want to have raisin beans and I want to have tostones or patacones or patacones right, like they wanted to still show up in their culture with the foods they love and not have it be like, oh no, we can't eat any of that anymore because that's not healthy, which is not true, right, you guys? I'm recording this in my bed and I'm like shifting If you hear it ruffling. So those were the top two reasons as to why I changed it.

Speaker 1:

I hope you love it. I hope it resonates. As I mentioned, I am trying to grow the podcast. So if I could just please ask one thing, right, just one thing in support, please, and in reciprocity, I would really love it if you would subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't, if you were to rate it or leave a quick review I know on Apple Podcasts you're able to leave a written review and, if anything, please go ahead and share it. Share it with loved ones that might need this information. Share it on your social media and go ahead and tag me at Naomi Jerez and at let's be healthy Latinas pod, so we can help spread the word. Share your favorite episode. Um, you can do that privately over text as well. So, yes, thank you. So, so, so much in advance for your support and for reading and sharing and all that good stuff All right, and sharing and all that good stuff, all right, let's get into this episode.

Speaker 1:

Because something that I see so often is that we always have this desire for our kids to be super healthy. We don't want them to be sick, we want them to be well. When our kids are sick, we are sick, if you know. You know Like we feel it in our soul, in our hearts. We also lose sleep with them, like it's a lot on parents to have sick children. And parents know, like you know, how to help your kid be healthy, like you be puring those peas and you be puring those broccolis and you be buying that organic food and biscuits and you choose different formula for your kid and all these things. Like you, you pull all the stops for your kid.

Speaker 1:

And as they start to grow your kid and as they start to grow, you want to continue to instill healthy habits for your children. And then it gets a little bit more complicated, because now your kid is making decisions and they are throwing tantrums over certain things. Or you want to model certain things for them and they're refusing to do certain things. And then it's like damn, you know, there's only so. You can only trick your kids for so long before they start to catch on as to what's really going on. And then you start to realize, man, I'm feeding my kid broccoli and I can't even look at broccoli without gagging. I want my kid to be active, but it's such a struggle for me to just even go for a walk, let alone go to the gym. Right, and you want to. And you and you start, it starts to weigh on you like, oh my gosh, I am going to ruin my kid, or my kid is not going to be healthy. Or, um, how am I going to get them to eat these vegetables if I'm not eating them? Because you know what?

Speaker 1:

The first, the most influential thing that you can do for your child is to model the behavior, and it goes back to the saying like. You know that. Saying like do as I say, not as I do, or something like that. It doesn't work that well, because the kids do as you do. They don't do what you say. They do what you do. They look at you, they observe you. They see how you eat. They see your facial reactions like they're the best little detectives that God has ever created and they get their cues from you. They see how you eat. They see your facial reactions Like they're the best little detectives that God has ever created and they get their cues from you.

Speaker 1:

And then we start to feel this pressure of oh my gosh, I need to be this perfect parent now, like I need to figure it out ASAP so that I can start to model this behavior for my kid. Now this is, generally speaking, right. It often works and it often takes some tweaking and sometimes your kid just doesn't give a crap. And I'll share an example, because one of my kids is just a really picky eater. He just is, and it's really hard to get him to eat things like vegetables, even though we model it all the time at home, and he does enjoy a lot of fresh food and there are ways where I do introduce a lot of different vegetables and fibers into his food that he doesn't really. It's not as evident to him, right, but it doesn't mean that he's not aware. It doesn't mean that he doesn't really it's not as evident to him, right, but it doesn't mean that he's not aware. It doesn't mean that he doesn't know what vegetables are and it doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy other, like fresh fruits and things like that.

Speaker 1:

So, again, this is always general, general advice or general suggestions and stories based on what I most commonly see, and this is why, to get more nuanced suggestions and skill building and what can you do? That's how my clients, that's what my clients receive, right, because we really can get into their stories and their struggles and ways to try and and remedy them Right. So let's, let's continue. I just wanted to have that caveat because most of the time, a lot of this work is like blanket, like like a meal plan, like we're covering so many people at once. And sometimes it is like blanket, like like a meal plan, like we're covering so many people at once, and sometimes it's like that. But sometimes you really, really really need personalized care and attention and when you are not able to fit the mold that's working for most people, we discount ourselves, not knowing that it's just that the way things work for someone else is just not the way that it might work for you and your family and you just need different strategies and that and that's all. It doesn't mean that it's not for you or that you're broken.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's get back to this kind of what do we do when we want to start like what does it look like even for us to then model healthy habits for our kids? And here's what I want to say. The first thing I want to call out is this idea of being perfect, like you try to be perfect yourself and then you try to push your perfectionism onto your child, right, and then you try to push your perfectionism onto your child, right, and then everybody becomes super frustrated and paralyzed in taking any action on your health, on your kid's health, on anything like that. There are some times where I see like, oh, I'm eating super low carb and I'm going to do that for my kid because that's what I learned. I'm eating, you know, everything gluten-free or everything keto, and we need to realize what the dietary needs for each season is.

Speaker 1:

What might be happening with you most likely does not apply for your kid. Your kid moves 10, 20, 30 times, probably more than you, and they are a growing human. You might not be growing anymore, okay, and they need the extra energy. So it's also knowing that like what's more appropriate for your child and what's more appropriate for you, and just letting your kid explore and learn their own lessons the same way you're learning your lessons. Sometimes your kid needs to learn their lesson too. Instead of kind of sheltering them so much, then they don't get to learn their body or what's going on.

Speaker 1:

But you can definitely guide them. But it's hard to guide them when you don't even know yourself what's happening, when you don't know how food affects you, how food works. Then it becomes harder for you to help your child build a connection with their body, which most of the time is innate anyway. Like they know when they need to stop eating, when they're full, they know when they're hungry, they know when they don't have that big of an appetite. They don't have that big of an appetite. But us as the adult, as often happens, we start to interfere with their innate nature of knowing their own self.

Speaker 1:

In addition to that, we live in a society where there's just a lot of things, like a lot of stuff at the birthday party, always somebody's giving them candy, there's always sweets around, there's always these kinds of things. And in those situations I have definitely had my kids just learn, learn kind of the hard way when they want an excess of sweets or whatever it is, and then they end up with a stomach ache. But that is a that is a learning scenario, because then I get to share with them. Hey, you know what your belly and your body does not really like when you give it so much sugar at once. And it's okay to save some for later and it's okay to say no, thank you, and it's okay not to finish it all. But again, how are you going to be able to teach your child and help them build connections if you don't understand that in your own body? So that's one of the first things that we can try and do. Instead of being super like anal and protective and you know, over food and things that they're having, one of the first things that you can start to do is to realize for yourself, build that connection for yourself as to how things feel, so that then you can help your kid right. So that then you can help your kid right?

Speaker 1:

Another thing is that wanting to be perfect before implementing healthy habits like you need to perfect everything before you start doing anything also teaches our children that wellness is kind of impossible and is only for certain people. And it's so hard when it essentially you can do one thing at a time. You can implement habits that are appropriate in that moment. Right, because if we wait to have the perfect amount of time and the perfect schedule and the perfect routine, then we're kind of missing the point because we're not doing. We end up not doing anything at all, so you end up modeling nothing at all. At least, if your kid is trying, is seeing you try, then you're engaging them right. You're modeling that behavior of trying to figure it out. And I'll give you an example A lot of times I couldn't make it to the gym and I had to work out at home and my kids were little right and it wasn't the smoothest workout.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when you have like a two-year-old and a four-year-old crawling on you and trying to figure out what's happening. But again, we're modeling here and it's not perfect, it's you're doing something and they're seeing you, because another thing is that when we leave to the gym. Our kids don't have no freaking clue what we're doing. They just know that you're not there.

Speaker 1:

But working out at home offered me that opportunity to show my kids how I move my body, to show them how I am following an instructor on the tablet, to see how I'm using my weights. And it became also this kind of fun time too, where I would use them as my weight and I would use them to do squats or to do sit-ups or to do all these kinds of things. I would set a little mat next to me so they got to follow along too and, trust me, they get bored really fast. Okay, like really fast. So they're going to be with you for a little bit and then that's it. I even went as far as to buy them little baby weights, like little one pound weights, because they wanted to play with the bigger ones, which is obviously not safe, and they loved it. And exercise became this normal thing, this fun thing that they wanted to be engaged with.

Speaker 1:

I have found my children putting on Peloton videos and hopping on the bike. I have found my kids putting on shadowboxing videos and doing a boxing workout, and it's no surprise to them if, when we go to the gym. It's normal. They like to go play basketball and they know that moving our bodies is something that is important and we do on a regular basis as a family. Whenever we have dinner, especially outside the home, we go for a walk. Not necessarily when we have dinner at home, but if we're having dinner at a restaurant, we usually plan to go for a walk after that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, not waiting for all the stars to align to incorporate one thing. Not waiting when you can have the time to build full meals from scratch to incorporate a vegetable or a fruit right. There's multiple ways to do that. Where it's not this all or nothing mentality, okay, and I want to reinforce that. You learning along with your children is more powerful than you pretending to have all the answers, than you pretending to have this perfect routine or not doing anything at all. You can absolutely learn together because you're still going to be that aspirational person to them. They're still going to be that aspirational person to them. They're still going to be looking up to you and they have honestly, no idea if you have this all figured out or not. They can be your biggest ally and partner because they, they are the real MVPs of going with the flow Most of the time, most of the time.

Speaker 1:

Okay, don't come after me, because I know one of my kids is not the go with the flow type of person. They need the routine and they need all like the answers and all that. But with my child who is like that, who is not a go with the flow type of person, what really helps with them is explaining things beforehand when it's new, or involving them in the process. Like I would take them to the supermarket with me, I would go through the vegetables, like we would go through the vegetables and name them. I would get them involved in the kitchen in peeling and chopping and doing whatever is age appropriate. So that's also a different way to approach it when kids are not go with the flow type of little humans because I get that too Okay. So there's no hiding your struggles with your kids. You know you can share with them that you're learning how to eat those foods too. You can let go of feeling like a hypocrite for preaching about vegetables while you're in the corner.

Speaker 1:

Stress eating and not liking a lick of vegetables and it giving you honestly wanting to vomit nausea just thinking about it, and it can also be learning how to make them in new ways and, just you know, making a little tasting table with everybody and be like, all right, let's, let's go try these things. Or really being vulnerable with them and be like, oh, I normally wouldn't eat this or I didn't enjoy it before, but I'm trying to give it a try again. I'm going to see a prepared different ways. I like it. Okay, and Try not to avoid conversations about health just again, because you don't know all the answers.

Speaker 1:

We live in the age of social media, of Google, of a lot of things, and it is a really good time for you and your kids to explore together and just figure it out. There's so many resources now where you can find recipes with ingredients and flavors that you enjoy. You can buy that one new thing. You can browse a farmer's market, if that's something that's accessible to you, or the vegetables at your local supermarket or wherever you buy your food, to see what's going on there, right? You can go out for a walk with your kid. You can make a dance party at home and you don't even really need to explain to them what's happening most of the time, depending on how young they are, because you know the older ones need a but why, but why? Sort of situation? Um, they'll just again do it because you're doing it, do it because you're enjoying it, and they get curious as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all of these points and really helping my clients build wellness habits, build routines, understand themselves and what's going on in their bodies so that they can support others around them that is exactly what I support my clients with in one-on-one food and hormone health coaching. Okay, I help them break those generational cycles by actually like the do as I say, not as I do, type of cycles right, where they're telling you to do one thing but no one's modeling that for you and you have no idea how to do it or how to get started or where to begin. That's what I support my clients with. How do they actually start modeling these kinds of behaviors for their children, for their family, for themselves? How do they begin their health journey and understanding that it really is a journey and not something that needs to be made perfect, because there's different seasons, different circumstances, different accessibilities and because health and wellness is like that and life is like that. We plan for a lot of these different scenarios that come up in our regular shmegular life, and that's why my clients are able to be successful and what's that word? That's why they're able to be successful and sustainable in their wellness journey, because they have various types of tools. They learn how to implement them and then they learn how to model them in their families.

Speaker 1:

And if you're absolutely lost as to where to start like where what does even modeling healthy behavior look like? I'll give you three things to get started with. Number one is drinking water. Let's all drink water. Let's put juices and sodas and these kinds of things to the side. Let's just increase our water intake. Number two is enjoying some sort of fresh food, whether it's fruits or a vegetable. Train your palate to really crave and look for that freshness that those kinds of food can provide, that it's not ultra processed. And number three, enjoy movement together, and I think I alluded to all three of these tips, except for the water one, I think, throughout this episode.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and I want to really hone in on the fact that it's something that is new to you as well, and you do not need to beat yourself up about all of this, because it was probably something or habits that were not modeled for you in maybe the holistic way or the all encompassing way that you want to show up and show your family. For example, in my home, my mom um, I was fortunate that I always had a home cooked meal. She worked in the house, she had her own business in the house and I always had a home cooked meal. But something that was not modeled for me was exercise. It was just not something that my mom had access to at the time, right, and it was not something that she grew up with. A lot of her exercise was just like working a lot of, a lot of manual and physical labor, right.

Speaker 1:

So there are pieces missing, maybe, or maybe everything is missing, and you really do understand how important it is, not just for you but also for your children, and you're like crap, I don't even know how to start. I'm so overwhelmed just thinking about it for me, I don't know how to show up and show my kids, know how to show up and show my kids, and that is exactly where we get started, exactly where we get started how to understand yourself. What is food, how does food work in our bodies? How do we choose food? What do these ingredient labels mean? How do, how do hormones work in our body and why are they so important and how are the symptoms that you're feeling? Tied to your hormones and a lot of it is in your lifestyle, and once you start learning that, then you'll build up the confidence to model that for your children. You will know how to get started, because the starting is just you starting. Did you hear?

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say that one more time the starting in teaching your kids how to live a healthy life is you starting. It's you starting. That is all they need for you to set the example, and I can help you start so that your kids start. I want to reiterate your kids do not need you to be a perfect example of health. They just need you to show them that taking care of yourself matters, that you matter, especially for little girls and our little boys too that they can in fact show up for themselves as well and they don't need someone else to be in charge of that for them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that is a whole nother episode, girl, we're not going to get into that. And that learning and growing is normal, that evolving is normal and that health is a practice, not something that you perform, not a show that you put on for social media or for other people. It's literally showing up for yourself. I'll leave it right there for you, friends, I'll leave it right there Again. If you are interested in just getting started and we can figure it out together, I invite you to book a free consultation call.

Speaker 1:

Let's get the conversation started with the link in the show notes. It is right where you click to listen to this episode. If you want to DM me, you can go ahead and do that on Instagram. You can also find the link to my Instagram in your show notes. And that is the first step, friends, that it can be that simple and together we can figure it out. I am never one to lead you in a direction that's not in your best interest. I just really want all of us to be healthy Latinas. Let's be healthy Latinas together, and that involves you. Friends. Okay, I will see you next week. I will see you in the zoom room in our consultation call, or I will see you in the dms. I hope you have a great week. Bye.